New York police will use drones to monitor backyard parties this weekend, spurring privacy concerns

deconstruct@lemm.ee to Technology@lemmy.world – 622 points – New York police will use drones to monitor backyard parties this weekend, spurring privacy concerns
apnews.com

The New York City police department plans to pilot the unmanned aircrafts in response to complaints about large gatherings, including private events, over Labor Day weekend, officials announced Thursday.

“If a caller states there’s a large crowd, a large party in a backyard, we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up and go check on the party,” Kaz Daughtry, the assistant NYPD Commissioner, said at a press conference.

The plan drew immediate backlash from privacy and civil liberties advocates, raising questions about whether such drone use violated existing laws for police surveillance.

“It’s a troubling announcement and it flies in the face of the POST Act,” said Daniel Schwarz, a privacy and technology strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union, referring to a 2020 city law that requires the NYPD to disclose its surveillance tactics. “Deploying drones in this way is a sci-fi inspired scenario.”

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Is it illegal to have house parties in NYC? Why is the NYPD busting up keggers like campus police?

It becomes illegal when there are too many people there, or there is violence, underage drinking, drug usage, and if it's too loud, the attendees are parking in the street blocking traffic, fire risks all sorts of shit

They are not responding to complains, they are searching themselves.

EDIT: my eyes. They are responding. Still very wierd. Crowd itself is not a crime, article 20 of DoHR says so.

The article specifically says in response to complaints...

It will be construed as, they can start indefinite surveillance on an area after a complaint is filed at any time.

"Someone complained 3 weeks ago so we're just checking it out"

Those sound like things they need a warrant to learn about in a place with a reasonable expectation of privacy.

It is illegal to have to many people at your own home? That's a new one.

Only in the context of like, fire safety. You can't have more people in a building than it is designed to safely hold.

Of course, cops use this safety regulation as an excuse to control people and be dicks...

That's all stuff people can call the cops for, no need for surveillance.

So you didn't read the article?

They say 'if a caller reports a large crowd, they'll send a drone', not 'if a crime is reported'. That's still surveillance, being in a large crowd isn't a crime by itself.

It was an incomplete article that did not properly explain what the supposed legitimate issue is.

So the cops and fuck with your backyard party if you smoke a joint?

Joint? Nah, hard drugs, fo sho (unless you are a billionaire).

How would a drone know? Other than capacity and street violations, there's nothing that a drone should realistically be able to identify.

I think the drone operators would do the identifying part

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no, as grass is legal in nyc now, but if you're blowing lines and smoking crack, trippin balls, or tweakin, they probably should, you know, for the kids in the neighborhood you nincompoop

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Ah, it wouldn’t be the police if they didn’t try to violate people’s rights before lawmakers can tell them no.

They shoud have to fire and not rehire half the police force every time this kind of thing haopens

We’d get to zero point zero remaining in a few minutes. So, I’m obviously in favor.

Oh no, not a large crowd on private property - this deservers police spying! /S

They totally won't use this to perv on girls sunning themselves on their private property. They have already been busted multiple times perving on girls walking in midtown but they would never do anything like that again and again and again.

So I've installed and operated PTZ cameras for multiple television shows and events, sometimes with junior operators - or just production assistants or other crew. These are in places where people know cameras are present. I can guarantee it doesn't take long for people at the camera control unit to learn they can zoom in on people's phones on set or follow girls around - and these are all professional people.

Cops with a drone that can zoom in on people unwittingly, in their back yards?! Oh, they are certainly going to do shit like this, or worse - they'll likely record for themselves.

I'm not from US - why is it forbidden to have a large group of people in the backyard?
As for the drones - just wow...

Any excuse to use surveillance cameras to spy on people will be used. It's not forbidden to have a party, but the shithead cops want to spy on people anyway just in case they might catch them breaking some laws.

There is also a nationwide program being implemented to feed the video from private security cameras into police surveillance systems. It's called FUSUS and they use equipment installed in private networks to upload the private security cameras' video to the police surveillance systems. Lots of people are signing on to this horrific program - businesses, schools, churches, community centers, etc. The police can use it to track people with video surveillance without a warrant. Security cameras anywhere you go could be potentially tapped into by government authorities to monitor you. It's already all over the USA and being rolled out in the UK now too.

Just as it is in the UK with their surveillance cameras everywhere, this is the future that George Orwell tried to warn us about.

It's not forbidden. This is a huge overstep by the police but typical of American police, who are allowed to violate our civil rights with impunity.

Yeah this is nothing compared to shooting people.

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we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up and go check on the party

Still bitter that they were never invited to any parties in high school and college. Seriously though, they need to back the fuck up. We have an amendment that requires them to get a warrant to spy on us on our own property or in our own house. Civil liberties groups need to stop raising questions and sue the fuck out of the police, judges, Mayor, and legislature. I hope someone knocks those drones out of the air. This kind of shit is infuriating. And no this isn't a sci-fi scenario, this is a clear and present dystopia.

Reading comments defending cops for launching drones to surveill people in their homes really boosts my morning faith in humanity.

This all seems stupid.

If you have a party big and crazy enough to justify airborne surveillance, the police will be able to figure it out just by showing up at your door. No drones are needed.

That being said, NYC has been flying helicopters for decades, so really nothing new privacy wise other than the size of the aircraft and the fact that "drone" invokes fears that drive clicks.

Don't forget scale. Significantly more practical to have a couple dozen drones than helicopters

They would not launch a helicopter to confirm a large scale party.

But even still, so they use a drone and they do confirm a large scale party, then what? They have to deploy the police to the house anyhow. Isn't better to have police just out patrolling and visiting these complaints? Then at least they look like they are doing something for the community.

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Sorry what's the problem with a party?

I think it is country what is wrong, where Declaration of Human Rights used as toilet paper.

See: article 20(relevant to topic) and article 3(irrelevant to topic)

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the way folks in the city throw them, sometimes, there are more problems than party

Belive me, I agree that there are a lot of shitheads in the world that make it a crappy place to live.

But I still think this kind of surveillance is overreach. The people doing the surveilling are not good people either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft

in a city whose physical geography is small in comparison to the enormity of humanity crammed into it, everyone's gotta behave or people die. simple as that. say what you like, but the communities must be policed, and if police can't see what you're doing if there's a problem or emergency, from the street, then air it is

Might as well preemptively lock everyone in a cell. That'd be the safest way to do it.

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For people wanting to take down drones, I think a directed energy weapon would work. It uses a beam high frequency radio waves or microwaves to disable electronics. Since there's no projectile, it would be easier to use without getting caught.

The inverse square law will ensure that anything you have that's powerful enough to disable a drone in flight will be at least the size of a semi truck.

Electromagnetic radiation is great for communication, not so much energy transfer.

There are already effective "guns" for jamming drones that are the size of a large rifle.

We can shape EM "beams" -- lasers, directional antennas, etc. Inverse square law is far less of a concern for collimated beams.

Yeah my initial response to the dispersal problem is to see if we can't weaponize Pringles can WiFi into something that can either physically disable the electronics or interrupt communication between the spybot and home base.

Inb4 someone gets charged with assaulting an officer for being impolite to an NYPD robot

I miss the early 2000s WokFi craze -- wifi and cheap off-the-shelf solutions are so widespread these days.

I used to "borrow" internet from the library that was 2 miles away. I waterproofed a USB wifi dongle and zip tied it to the feedhorn of an old Direct TV dish. I brought the setup anytime we had a LAN party at a house that didn't have broadband internet.

The military already uses such devices. They look like bulky sci-fi rifles and are quite man-portable. They aren't frying the drone, they just need to send a signal stronger than its control signal so the inverse square law works in its favor.

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Unless someone would stumble upon a combination of microwave magnetron that "just so happens" to fit a satellite dish LNC mount. I can neither confirm nor deny that such combinations might exist.

It certainly would seem a very good way to impart... "energy" into all and sundry besides the intended target, and as such horribly dangerous and irresponsible.

I have a dream of engineering a drone to hover while it engages an rf jammer for some set amount of time.

The inverse square law only applies to undirected things, because the surface area of a sphere is proportional to the square of radius. The parent specified directed, like a laser.

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Easy fix. Take a picture of the ground, using a drone. Then get a big marquee and have that picture painted on the marquee.

Your party is now invisible.

This was actually done for entire blocks during WWII, specifically in Southern California where aerospace design & mfg companies where located. The covers were painted to look like dirt lots or undeveloped spaces to hide the actual buildings & roads from potential aerial assaults.

There's a book I think everyone should read, and it's not Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

I always think Fahrenheit 451 is more appropriate. They're all about banning books after all.

America in general, yes; but I thought NY was one of the nice places?

Is it illegal to blind drone cameras with lasers yet?

I wouldn't risk life in prison to find out, they might just call the drone a helicopter to arrest you

Edit: To be clear, fuck the police and their spy toys. I just don't wanna get caught doing something that will ruin my life, and I hope it doesn't happen to anyone else.

Yes, the FAA treats it as a serious violation.

I be establishing an anti drone firing squad in NYC. We will shoot down any law enforcement drones we find. Fuck the NYPD. fuck the mayor. If your drone flies over my property in NYC it will be shot lol.

The faa regulates air traffic .including drones. You shoot down an nypd drone, you're gunna get the feds involved.

You know i'm not a fan of guns but this makes me think about buying an anti aircraft weapon...

Breaking federal laws doesn't sound like a good way to do anything but go straight to federal prison. The FAA laws on shooting down aircraft are pretty serious.

This is a perfect example of something unethical being lawful. Should we break unethical laws?

What about accidentally spraying them with a hose?

i hope they can be dazzled/jammed in a way that is not illegal. just have bright lamps pointing up or something

Or slingshot it, then claim you thought it was a perv and not a cop drone because they have no discernable markings from so far up.

Just FYI, interfering with any drone, even a hobbyist drone flown by a perv spying on you, is a VERY serious crime. The FAA doesn't fuck around with that, because drones are considered aircraft under their jurisdiction. They'll go after you as hard as they would if you took down a fully-occupied 747.

More often than not, you'll get in worse trouble for interfering with a drone than the pilot will for whatever crimes they may be committing with it. It's not worth it. Your best bet is to just report it and go inside.

I mean, one kills people, that seems like it would be treated different

Any object falling uncontrollably out of the sky can kill somebody.

Based on the amount of Ukraine drone strike videos I've seen, these things are near unnoticeable as high up as they are.

True. And telling streetcleaners look at the sky won't change anything.

Jamming may cause problems with FCC

next time some conservative american wants to tell me we dont have freedom in australia, gonna send them this

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Replace drone with helicopter and this isn't tech news. This isn't any different a tactic, either.

A helicopter is very obvious when it's nearby, a drone is far less so. One could be watching you right now and you probably wouldn't know unless you were looking for it.

This is as bad as Russia. Or even worse. Congrats on achieving new bottom.

You control the airspace of your property, I don’t think they can legally fly over without permission.

No, you don't. Not in the sense that you can prevent overflight. The FAA certainly isn't going to let you stop plans from flying over your house.

Also, a drone hovering high over the street can probably see your back yard just as well as if it was hovering directly over your property.

The definitional boundary is where navigable airspace begins. You do own the non-navigable airspace above your property and you would have a trespassing argument if a drone entered that area without your permission. Where exactly the boundary is between navigable and non is a bit fuzzy but generally it will be at the highest object in the property eg. a treetop.

I still wouldn't mess with the drone though, as another commenter said interfering with an aircraft of any type is a very serious crime.

True but you may be able to get a judge to agree that it can’t be used as evidence in court.

FTA it says they're using it in response to complaints, which is probably how they're getting around the 4th amendment and considering the complaint of a large gathering "probable cause". I'd bet my bottom dollar that only complaints in predominantly minority communities will actually be investigated with drones, based on NYPD practices. Just more to add to !thepoliceproblem@lemmy.world